2018 Social Media Image Sizes Cheat Sheet

Social media platforms are forever changing the image sizes and formats, so to keep you all updated I have re-created the 2016 social media image sizes cheat sheet and updated it to 2017.

The need for strong social media presence has soared in 2016 and will only increase in prominence in 2017. This is why you really need to keep up to speed with your business / brand / personal profiles, and to optimize them with the right images to represent you!

“The 2018 Social Media Image Sizes Guide” below explains to you what the best image sizes are for each social network and the image types to use. Every major social media platform is listed on here so you’re up-to-date with social media platform optimization.

This year I’ve added in two new platforms to the list. With the growing popularity of Chinese social media networks, it’s only right that I include WeChat and Weibo.

I’ve also added in Ello social media image sizes as well, as I know a few of you guys are starting to use that platform more and more.

Also this graphic displays specific dimensions and we have also added some very quick tips and insights to help you make your mind up on what photo to use on what social media platform.

I hope you find this graphic as useful as the last few I did in 2015, 2016 and 2017.

To help you further with building your social media audience, why not try out Sendible.com for free ( 30 days )
You also get a further 15% discount ( exclusive only to Makeawebsitehub.com ) on all Sendible packages when you sign up using this link

Social Media Platforms Optimized Image Sizes 2018

Get your social media platforms optimized with the right image sizes and stand out from the crowd. From Twitter and Pinterest to Instagram and Facebook image sizes, we have the complete guide right here in one clear infographic! We have even added two Chinese Social Networks – Weibo & We Chat!.

With the ever growing need to have a strong social media presence for your business / brand / personal profiles, it’s so important to optimize them with the right images to represent you.

To help you get the most out of your social media profiles, we’ve produced an infographic “The 2018 Social Media Image Sizes Guide” that tells you the best image sizes for each social network and image types; and to make certain that you’re up-to-date with social media platform optimization. This graphic will be constantly updated, so if the networks change their formats, we will be the first to show it in this graphic.

Not only do we list the specific dimensions, we’ve have also added some very quick tips and insights to help you decide what photo to use in what platform.

Along with the mobile revolution, the demand for social networking has probably taken the world by storm!
Whether it is for a business or a brand or a personal profile, there is a growing need to stay active on social media sites.

You are probably reading this article because you are looking for ways to optimise your social media presence.
And you would agree that images have a strong bearing on the way your social media profile is perceived or remembered!

But, with so many social media platforms, how do you remember the various image size optimisation guidelines?

A cool tip is to bookmark this blog post and the related infographic to stay updated with any changes to the social media image size optimisation rules.
In this article, we lay out a 2015 brief guide to social media image sizes or dimensions for the top social media websites.

Twitter Image Sizing Tips

It is often said that the “first impression is the last impression”!
Your Twitter profile picture is your main identification mark that will be visible to everyone. It will be visible on your home page, on the Twitter stream of your followers whenever you Tweet and so on.
Since it represents you or your brand, the image should be of the highest quality.

Header Photo: 1500 x 500 pixels (a maximum 10 MB file size)

You can use an eye-catchy, creative image for your high-resolution header photo on your Twitter profile page. As a business, your Twitter page header photo should be in sync with your logo, tagline and brand.

You can post up to four pictures along with your tweets on this platform. For every in-stream picture, an image link is created which takes up the Twitter character space. You simply need to maintain the 2:1 ratio of the images which can be reduced to a smaller version to effectively fit your follower’s stream.

Image Sizing Advice for Facebook

Cover Photo: 820 x 310 pixels (a preferred maximum file size of 100 KB)
You can edit and add creative images as your cover photo that represents you or your business in the correct sense. – Appear on page at 820 x 310 pixels
– Anything less will be stretched.
– Minimum size of 399 x 150 pixels.
– Smartphones display as 640 x 360
– For best results, upload an RGB / JPG file less than 100 KB.
– Images with a logo or text maybe best as a PNG file.

Profile Picture: 180 x 180 pixels
Unlike the cover photo, which only appears on your Facebook page, your Facebook profile picture will be seen on your page, on posts where you comment, on the timelines of others where you post messages, in search results of Facebook’s Open Graph and so on. In short, it represents you at most places on the largest social networking platform.

Shared Image: 1200 x 630 pixels
You can engage your friends or business followers in meaningful conversations by sharing useful images on your Facebook timeline. These will appear in the news feeds of your friends and followers. Check this post for more information on image sizes for Facebook

Image Sizing Guidelines for Google+

Profile Image: 250 x 250 pixels
Again, this picture will be your identity across the Google+ network. Even though the dimensions are for a square image, your Google+ profile picture appears as a circle. So, you need to take special care of how your image looks without the important parts being cut out.

Cover Picture: 1 080 x 608 pixels
You can use a large picture representing your brand, logo and business tagline as your Google+ cover image.

Shared Image: 497 x 373 pixels
You can share images on your Google+ posts and indicate the specific “circles” with whom you want to share the image and for whom it may be more relevant. Remember, such images (along with the associated text) are likely to turn up in the Google search engine for search queries related to your posts or business.

Instagram Image Sizing Rules

Profile Picture: 110 x 110 pixels

Photo Size: 1080 x 1080 pixels

Video to Stories: 750 x 1334 pixels

On Instagram, you can upload a video to your timeline or share it to Instagram stories. The correct size to use will be determined by where you publish it.

Photo Thumbnails: 161 x 161 pixels
For all types of Instagram images, you need to maintain an aspect ratio of 1:1. So, all your images will appear in square dimensions. You need to take special care with the image quality because limited text content is shared on this platform. It is more about the pictures and visuals!

Recommended Image Sizes for Pinterest

Profile Picture: 165 x 165 pixels
A Pinterest profile picture may not be as important as that of Facebook or Twitter profile pictures. However, you still need to use a nice one. After all, anyone who arrives at your board or pins through the keyword search will probably have a look at your profile too.

Pin Sizes: a width of 238 pixels (with scaled height)
Though these are the dimensions for your Pinterest pins, expanded pins will have a minimum width of 600 pixels. You can post larger images (as only the width is fixed, while the length can be scaled further up) for better engagement and more re-pins or likes.

Optimisation Rules for Tumblr Image Sizes

Profile Image: 128 x 128 pixels
You can use a good looking square profile picture that visually represents you or your business on Tumblr. It will appear on your profile page, next to the button to “follow” you when someone lands on your page and as thumbnails next to your posts in your follower’s feeds.

Image Posts: 500 x 750 pixels
You can post images with up to 10 MB file sizes (except for animated gifs which should not be more than 1 MB). You can thus upload really high-quality pictures for your Tumblr posts.

YouTube Image Sizing Guidelines

The sizes are optimised for the different platforms as YouTube videos are often streamed using any of the above mentioned platforms. Also, the video channel cover image should tell your viewers more about the kind of videos that they will probably be able to view on your channel.

Video Uploads: 1280 x 760 pixels

You know that YouTube is a video sharing site and not an image sharing one. So, you need to maintain this resolution (about 16:9 aspect ratio) for the videos that you upload.

One of the two brand logos that you should be uploading to LinkedIn is the business logo. This is the bigger of the two and is going to show up right next to your brand name on your LinkedIn homepage. This image also appears in the “Companies you may want to follow” section, so the more enticing the photo the more likely the followers!

At the top of this page sits a banner that is bigger than any of the other images on LinkedIn. You can use this space to choose a picture that speaks to your company in order to attract some great potential employees.

Banner images is one of the newest and most prominent of the images that you can use on LinkedIn. This image appears when a user visits your brand’s homepage. Since this image is located on your homepage it’s likely the visitor is actively searching for your brand, so use this opportunity to reel them in with a great image.

One of the two brand logos that you should be uploading to LinkedIn is the business logo. This is the bigger of the two and is going to show up right next to your brand name on your LinkedIn homepage. This image also appears in the “Companies you may want to follow” section, so the more enticing the photo the more likely the followers!

Image Size Optimisation for Ello

Banner image: 2560 x 1440 pixelsProfile image:360 x 360 pixels

Image Size Optimisation for WeChat

Profile Photo: 200 x 200 pixels

– Square Image – Recommended 200 x 200 pixels. JPG, GIF, or PNG.
– For best results, upload an RGB
– Images with a logo or text maybe best as a PNG file.

Article Preview Header: 900 x 500 pixels

The article preview header image spans the top of your account post. It’s quite larger than the other article preview thumbnails images so you have much more room to be creative with this picture. Since it will probably be the first place a visitor’s eyes will fall, these images tend to be the most captivating.

Displays at a width of 400 pixels, but higher resolution is recommended.
– Maximum file size: 2 MB.
– JPG, GIF, or PNG.
– For best results, upload an RGB
– Images with a logo or text might be best as a PNG file.

Up to 9 images of any dimensions under 5MB can be uploaded to a single post, and may be accompanied by a video.

Posts with a single image have a preview thumbnail that resizes the image at its original proportions so the largest dimension is 120 px.

Contest Preview: 640 x 640 px
The square-shaped contest preview displays at 288 x 288 pixels in the sidebar of the account’s main blog page and full size at 640 x 640 pixels on the dedicated contest page. This image can be uploaded independently of the long form contest poster.

Image Size Optimisation for Snapchat

All photos taken in the app are 1080 x 1920. Custom geo-filters must be created in this size to be applied properly on a photo taken within the app.

For this professional social networking platform, you should make sure that all your images are embedded with text to add more contexts.

Also, make sure that you use creativity to showcase the most relevant things about your business and brand in the banner image as well as in your cover image.

It is bound to get you connected and engaged with more professionals. Even from a personal profile perspective, you can leverage the most out of this platform by having creative images to make professionals sit up and take notice.

Jamie

My name is Jamie Spencer and I have spent the past 5 years building money making blogs. After growing tired of the 9-5, commuting and never seeing my family I decided that I wanted to make some changes and launched my first blog. Since then I have launched lots of successful niche blogs and after selling my survivalist blog I decided to teach other people how to do the same.

116 Comments

Marie

Mykl Novak

Please update your Tumblr information. 1) The profile photo (avatar) appears as 64 by 64 pixels (not 128 by 128 pixels) on the Dashboard. 2) The maximum size for avatars is 512 by 512 pixels. 3) Tumblr no longer accepts BMP files. 4) Images now appear as 540 pixels wide (maximum) by 810 pixels high (maximum) on the Dashboard. 5) Animated GIFs must be under 2 MB. Also, the 500-pixel reference is outdated. GIFs can be 1280 x 1920 as long as they are under 2 MB. 6) Finally, consider using the most recent Tumblr “t” logo.from https://www.tumblr.com/logo

Jamie

Jadon

Hey seems like you know a lot! Do have any tips on getting the header image to be sharp? Referring to the one that lives in right the side panel thing every tumblr is given. It is the one that pops up when you click on somebody’s profile…

Thanks

Jamie

Posted on 20 February

I normally set it to 300dpi, save as a JPG in RGB and push up the level of quality to 11.

Bob Fast

absolutely! Many of these social guru sites totally miss this! And about how ‘featured images’ are dragged in (and how you should prepare for these if you can, including how you design for these eg text in middle of graphic)… ffs!

Christophe De Cock

Neha

Elizabeth R

Hi Jamie, my name is Elizabeth, I´m from Puebla, México and I’m working in my university degree, it is a short manual for community management for the advertising agency in my school and I would like to add the images that you are using in the article, so, if they are originally yours, may I use them for it? Thank you! And really nice work, I loved the article :)

Anja

Sarah

Hey, just wanted to let you know that the proportions on your youtube graphic are wrong. The box at the top that you are referring to is not 2560 x 1440. I’m actually not sure which proportions you used for it since it seems to be at a ratio of 221:54.

Misty Elam

Valeria Pettinari

Awesome, thank you! But I have a question for you regarding the Facebook Timeline Photo. I can see Facebook resizes the images at 470 px width in the desktop news feed… How come you recommend 1200x630px images? And where does Facebook displays the timeline photo at 504 px width? Thank you very much!

Silvia Brandmeier

Thank you for updating the informations to 2016. However I have one small suggestion: you could include the name and not only the icon for the social media services because not everyone knows every channel. I know 4 out of them and the rest I can’t even google quickly and need to find out first which logo stands for which service. But otherwise you did a great job!

Erica Wilson

Pien Vink

You´re PSD files are really helpfull! Can I use your images in my own blog (of course with link to your website). If yes, do you happen to have this d0cument indesign (so I can translate it into Dutch).

Have a nice dag, Pien

Jamie

Ana Gil

Hi Jamie, regarding the facebook cover, is the mobile area still 563 x315 px as it was?
What about the different location of the profile picture on a company page (left) vs personal page (centered) on mobile, do you know the dimensions?
Cheers from Portugal!

Kari H

According to Facebook, the profile background image should be 828×315. And Facebook also says that the profile picture is 160×160. So in both cases your photoshop templates are correct, and your infographic and web page text are wrong.

Jamie

Posted on 07 July

Thanks for the heads up Kari. I’ve amended the graphic now.

Chris Burgess

Thank you Jamie for the information about social media image sizes. It’s quite annoying when they cut an image off and the punch line of the meme is only half shown, This information will come in handy.

Margaux Flores

CyberCraft Robots

This is GREAT information. I think that a good addition would be what the mobile versions of each of these sites displays. 2/3 of the visitors to my facebook page are mobile. Today I finally found a template that combined the cover photo dimensions for both mobile and desktop in one template (since one image needs to fit both places). It was a real help, but not as well done as what you do here.

Steve

Jarrett Holmes

I CANNOT BELIEVE you don’t have social share buttons on this kick ass post. You are missing a TON of free traffic and shares brother. I would combine that with a social locker by OnePress to get access to the PSD templates and you’ll get 5X the results too! Thanks for sharing.

Jamie

I don’t care too much for share buttons. If people really want to share it, they will copy and paste the URL into whatever social platform they use. This piece gets shared many times everyday, so I’m not that worried.

Pam

Mark

Paul

Thought some might not have noticed the new Facebook Carousel Ad format which requires images 600x600px.
However, if you create your ad that size you are limited in the amount and size of text (the 20% rule).
However, if you create images the standard FB Ad size (1200×628) and design the part of the image you want to display in the centre section (628×628) , you can add much more text because it’s 20% of the larger image. FB will resize and crop your images to 600×600.

adel

Hi, the recommended dimensions for the instagram profile picture are 180×180, this is accounting for the size displayed on the web, which is bigger than the one displayed on the mobile app. Great infographic!

Richard E

From what I understand in this video, Facebook Open Graph and Twitter Cards are also important for click-throughs on your links. Do you have any info on the image size required for those? Because I’ve seen you mention Open Graph but nothing about the optimal image size for it.

Thanks in advance for any answer!

Steph

Hi, regardless of the sizes recommended I still find my Facebook links’ featured images looking pixelated and ugly (tried 1200 x 627, and the same ratio with 2400 x 1254 and 4800 x 2508). Tried saving as JPG for both Photoshop maximum quality (1.9mb) and high quality (980ikb) as well. Any tips on how I can improve the resolution?

Matt G

Thanks for collecting all of this together in one place, really useful, really generous!

One request, if I may, is that it would be great to include areas in the PSD laters to indicate the dead-zones. For example, to show which parts of the facebook cover photo will get cut off in the mobile view vs the desktop.

Mark H

No one ever seems to mention what DPI/PPI we should save our images at (for our social media assets)… nor the ideal file size. So that’s my question. Are we talking 72ppi or 150ppi or even 300ppi? And what’s the range when it comes to file size?

Jamie

DPI/PPI are relative to printed images and therefore are irrelevant. Pixels are all you ever need to think about. To determine how big an image should be on your website, you have to know what size in pixels it needs to fill.

Well unless you’re using a vector format like SVG… are you?

Jamie

Mark H

Posted on 08 December

Cheers for getting back to me Jamie. Much appreciated. And gotcha…

I do use some SVG’s, yep. But as for JPG’s, I’ve always gone with 72ppi images in the past. However, there’s been a suggestion that I save at 150ppi in future (to account for retina). Please bear with me. I come from a print background, so without being told what PPI an image should be when I make it in Photoshop—or more to the point, save it from Photoshop—I feel lost at sea.

As a result, when I save for a full-width section/background image for a web page, my average image is 1920px x 1280px (now at 150ppi). I use the Save for Web dialogue and set the image to save at around 200k (approx. 60%). It then gets compressed a bit more when it’s uploaded, thanks to Smush.

In the past, I’ve saved JPGs for Facebook profile images at the exact sizes I was advised (180px x 180px @ 72ppi). However, they were visibly low rez and pixelated. So I increased the variables ( to 1000px x 1000px) and, sure enough, it then looked sharp. I can’t remember for sure, but I might’ve even gone with a traditional print ppi of 300. Maybe 150? Either way, the outcome was decent.

I find that when an image is saved to fit the exact space (and at 72ppi)—especially in profile shots—it looks obviously low rez. So how do we combat that? And what default ppi setting should we run with in Photoshop. It has got to be set at something—even if it’s irrelevant for web—so what’s best practice?

Mark

P.S. How does the use of SVG’s differ? DO they need to be exact dimensions and rez?

Jamie

Posted on 09 December

Set the exact image size in the image options that Photoshop gives you when you start a new image.
I always set the resolution to a minimum of 150ppi when creating images for social platforms. It’s not too big to upload and not too small in terms of quality, and you do get a high quality from this resolution.

Forget about SVGs. Upload as JPG and set the quality to between 80 & 100% when you save to web.
Also make sure your color profile is RGB. SO many save to CMYK and it just makes cyans and magenta almost luminous.

William

Griffin W

Thanks for this compilation. Very helpful for designers. Any plans to include dimension for Flickr header images? My online research comes up with conflicting information and I’ve been struggling to figure out dimensions for my page header image. Flickr does a weird thing with resizing and cropping.

Jamie

Matt

Leonie

Hi Jamie, I just posted a Pinterest pin (photo) to Facebook but the photo appears significantly zoomed in on Facebook, so a lot of the photo is not visible. I’m a novice when it comes to image sizing so am wondering if you have any tips for how to size a Pinterest picture so that it doesn’t get cut off on Facebook?

Ludo Fioravanti

Great work! I work for the IDM and we provide marketing content. I would love to reference this article for one of our online courses (of course link back to you and we reference according to Harvard style). However, I have to make you as the author aware because the content sits behind a password protected log in.

Please let me know whether I can reference this article or if there is any more info you need!
thanks,
Ludo

Stavros

MD. Arifur Rahman

Very poor post. Your Facebook guide is outdated and the sizes are not fit to all the cover photo like pages, groups events etc. Your cover photo size is not responsive. They cut off on the mobile devices.

Jade

We’re having some problems with Twitter images in stream on the iPad – On the web the image work perfectly once resized to the above dimensions but when we view our stream on an iPad the image is cropped again. How can I stop this from happening? Thanks.

AaronD

Hey Jamie, we often help our cleints out on a weekly basis with getting the design right on Social Media. I was due to write a blog post on this but really cant fault anything you have here (especially with the constant updates with the ever changing social media platforms). Would you be so kind to let me reference this page in a blog post full link back to this site and credit to the author?

Jamie

Dave Z

Hey this is an awesome resource! Thanks so much for posting. I vlog on YouTube and just started my own website. ZINSWORLD. So this will be very helpful since I do my own graphic design work on photo shop. Good job!

In this guide, you’ll find they don’t want you adding gradients to their logo. I discovered this recently after realizing I had been violating the style guides of several platforms while working on my project. Hope you don’t mind the unsolicited advice :)

Alexandra Jeane

Jenny Edwards

Hi Jamie! I may be doing this wrong, but when I use your template for Facebook-Profile-Template at 160×160, I get an error message on FB that states “please choose a photo that is at least 180 pixels wide.” So I made a new template in Photoshop, 180×180, 300 ppi, sRGB. When I upload that image, I get the message “This photo is small, and your profile picture will be less clear.” Am I doing something wrong here? In the past, I have used an action that sharpened and resized to 2048 x 1365 at 72 ppi and the thumbnail was about the same, but the image was much clearer in the “profile pictures” folder. Can you advise why resizing to 180×180 is best practice?

Sue W

Nico Louwrier

Hi Jamie, I agree with all other replies: great stuff, thanks! Could you give some further guidance regarding Twitter images for mobile? I used 440×220 pixels, and great deliverance for laptop, but bluntly cut off on smart phone… Cheers!

Jamie

calum

Whilst your facebook cover photo is correct for desktop, on mobile it ends up chopping off the sides of the image.

The size actually should be. 820 x 461 with a safe zone of 820 x 312 pixels, this way when viewed on a desktop, it will appear as 820 x 312 but when viewing on mobile you will see the 820 x 461 version.